Ekundayo, a Dogon spirit brought to America from Africa, inhabits the body of a young African American slave on a Virginia plantation, where he experiences loss, sorrow, and reconciliation in the months preceding the Civil War. Amma is the creator god, the master of life and death, and he is worried. His people have always known how to take care of the spirits of the dead - the nyama - so that they don't become destructive forces among the living....